Less for gas = More for food?

For some, gas prices overshadowed grocery bills last summer.

Despite the high price of food, the global economic downturn has caused U.S. gas prices to decrease.  I wondered whether those in poverty are better off because of this.             

Dr. Cynthia Anderson, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Ohio University, said:

I think that when the gas prices were high, what happened is [the economically vulnerable] couldn’t afford to go places . . . They might not have been able to drive in for their job, they might have lost their job because they couldn’t come in regularly, so they couldn’t pay for gas.  Now that gases prices are coming back down, maybe now they can resume some of their normal traveling. I don’t think it will give them any more disposable income, though.

The Silver Lining

Outside of the fluctuating oil prices, the newest crises on Wall Street may not have had the same disastrous effect on the working poor as it did on the middle class.  Anderson, who specializes in low-wage occupations, noted, “[We are] seeing a lot of downsizing [in industrial jobs] but the low-wage jobs . . . . I think are pretty stable.”  She explained that these low-wage jobs are in the “the secondary sector of the service industry.”  Most of these employees are in retail or food industry jobs that withstand bear markets, but they earn the federal minimum wage and are unable to secure benefits.

Nevertheless, the troubled economy may benefit the poor through increased coverage of homelessness, unemployment and poverty.  “Now lower-class, working poor and poor people are getting more attention because the middle class is drawing attention to the general issue,” Anderson said.  “[When] middle class people start losing their houses and their jobs and their food sources  . . . then we do wake up and pay more attention.  And that’s unfortunate, because the lower class and the working poor have always been there and have always been struggling with this.”

Scanlan agreed that when the U.S. endures difficult economic times like the Great Depression and the present people start to realize that forces outside of people’s control that affect their lives.  We begin to see that we do need a safety net because “times are tough and there are downturns that hardworking people fall victim to.”